That being said, I don't think that the transitional species between our most recent common ancestor and modern humans are considered apes, because by the definition of a paraphyletic group, "A group of taxa is said to be paraphyletic if the group consists of all the descendants of a hypothetical closest common ancestor minus one or more monophyletic groups of descendants (typically one such group)" (Wikipedia for paraphyly).

I think I'm understanding your position better now. It would seem that the only phylogenetic problem was in first saying that humans are not apes, thus CREATING the paraphyleticistic ( is that a word ?) view of the group called "Apes".

Once the descendent groups and ancestor are under the same name , it's a good monophyletic grouping.

The "great apes" were formerly treated as the family Pongidae. As noted above, this definition makes the Pongidae paraphyletic, and does not show that orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and humans are all more closely related to one another than any of these four groups are to gibbons. Further, current evidence implies that humans share a common extinct ancestor with the chimpanzee line, from which we separated more recently than the gorilla line.

Further, current evidence implies that humans share a common extinct ancestor with the chimpanzee line, from which we separated more recently than the gorilla line.

I think I'm right, in the post above, because if this "current evidence", as suggested in Wiki, does suggest a split from the Chimp line...then Homo would more rightfully be a genus in the tribe Panini.

...although thisfrom which we separated more recently than the gorilla line

is also suggestive of a view that Gorillas would then be part of Pan-something

Plus I'm laying down my own rule; in order to be correct, monophylogeneticistically, in any of this, one must state any grouping attempt thusly: "All animals*..blah blah blah". Never like this: "All primates...blah blah blah".

That being said, I don't think that the transitional species between our most recent common ancestor and modern humans are considered apes, because by the definition of a paraphyletic group, "A group of taxa is said to be paraphyletic if the group consists of all the descendants of a hypothetical closest common ancestor minus one or more monophyletic groups of descendants (typically one such group)" (Wikipedia for paraphyly).

I think I'm understanding your position better now. It would seem that the only phylogenetic problem was in first saying that humans are not apes, thus CREATING the paraphyleticistic ( is that a word ?) view of the group called "Apes".

Once the descendent groups and ancestor are under the same name , it's a good monophyletic grouping.

Yes, that is exactly what I was trying to say.

Crucible wrote:OK, I think I've matched up the names w/ the groupings a bit better.

I think the rules for monophylogeneticism must have wording inclusive enough to force exclusion of non-monophyletic groupings. That is, by structuring the wording so that it's "All animals..blah blah", I seek to exclude features due to convergent evolution. It works by first including all animals, and the wording that follows must do the excluding.

In the above, I think some groupings are good monophylogenetic groupings and some aren't ( but could be good groupings for work other than monophylogenetic type ) . I'll try to distinguish them using the terms given and my rule. As an example, offhand it seems "Panoidea" would be OK.